Rule of Law: The film demonstrates how everyone in the community loses when the rule of law breaks down.

OPENING ACTIVITY

Fruit and Vegetable Battle: (Challenge)

Who can name the most fruit and vegetables? Using slide four from the How should we celebrate Harvest? PowerPoint invite two volunteers to join you at the front. In turn they must name a fruit or a vegetable. If one of the volunteers hesitates, names something that is not a fruit or a vegetable or repeats an item that has already been mentioned, they are replaced by another volunteer. The games continues.

FILM CLIP 1

From Peter Rabbit (Sony Pictures, 2018) certificate PG.

Start time: 00:12:32 (The rabbits enter the garden.)

End time: 00:15:12 (Peter says, ‘Mr McGregor will torment us no more.’)

Clip length: 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘After old Mr McGregor dies, the rabbits go into his garden. Peter starts to make a serious speech about the need to take care of the garden but he is not being serious. He tells the others to eat as much as they want. The rabbits immediately start gorging themselves on the fruit and vegetables that Mr McGregor has grown. Other animals notice that the rabbits have free run of the garden and join them. A stag removes the gate to the garden with his antlers and all animals enjoy a feast. Peter and Benjamin break into Mr McGregor’s house and the animals take their feasting inside. All the animals are enjoying themselves greatly. At the height of the party, Peter declares, ‘Mr McGregor will torment us no more.’

FILM CLIP 2

From Peter Rabbit (Sony Pictures, 2018) certificate PG.

Start time: 00:07:46 (Bea and the rabbits run to her cottage.)

End time: 00:09:47 (Bea says, ‘The rain’s stopped’.)

Clip length: 2 minutes and 1 second.

If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say: ‘After saving Peter from old Mr McGregor, Bea and the rabbits run back to her cottage. She dries them with towels and gives them something to drink. The rabbits look at her paintings but cannot understand them. Peter then stares at a painting she had done of him. He remembers being younger and living happily with his parents. One day, his father goes to old Mr McGregor’s vegetable garden where he is caught and killed. He is served up in a pie by Mrs McGregor. These memories cause Peter to feel very sad. Bea reassures him that she will look after him forever.’

In the past in the United Kingdom, most people grew their own food. A good harvest was something to celebrate because it meant that people would have enough food to see them through the winter time.

[PowerPoint slide 3]

Nowadays, most people don’t grow their own food. It is grown by farmers both in this country and other countries across the globe. The variety of fruit and vegetables that is available to us is something that our ancestors could never have imagined. But how many different types of fruit and vegetables can you name?

[PowerPoint slide 4]

Let’s find out by playing a Fruit and Vegetable Battle. [Play the game until volunteers are struggling to name items not mentioned previously. For your information the fruits include pear, cherries, butternut squash, guava, radish, redcurrants, marrow, kiwi, lime, beans, pomegranate, and avocado. Congratulate volunteers on their extensive knowledge of fruit and vegetable varieties.]

[PowerPoint slide 5]

We are very fortunate to live in the United Kingdom in the 21st century because most people here do not have to worry about having enough food to get through the winter. We don’t worry that our harvests might fail. Therefore, how should we celebrate Harvest?

[PowerPoint slide 6]

In the film, Peter Rabbit, animals and the humans have a fruit and vegetable battle. But it’s not like the one that we’ve just played. In the film, the animals and humans battle over who gets to eat the fruit and vegetables. After the death of old Mr McGregor, the animals have his vegetable garden all to themselves. Let’s see how they celebrate their good fortune.

End time: 00:15:12 (Peter says, ‘Mr McGregor will torment us no more.’)

Clip length: 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say, ‘After old Mr McGregor dies, the rabbits go into his garden. Peter starts to make a serious speech about the need to take care of the garden but he is not being serious. He tells the others to eat as much as they want. The rabbits immediately start gorging themselves on the fruit and vegetables that Mr McGregor has grown. Other animals notice that the rabbits have free run of the garden and join them. A stag removes the gate to the garden with his antlers and all animals enjoy a feast. Peter and Benjamin break into Mr McGregor’s house and the animals take their feasting inside. All the animals are enjoying themselves greatly. At the height of the party, Peter declares, ‘Mr McGregor will torment us no more.’

[PowerPoint slide 7]

Is this then how we should celebrate our harvest? Like the animals in Peter Rabbit, should we have a big victor feast, a winners’ dinner? In the past, I’m sure that our ancestors did do this because a good harvest must have felt like a victory over the weather, insects and everything else that might have destroyed the harvest. But we have more than enough food all of the year round. If we want, we can have a winners’ dinner every day of the week. So how should we celebrate Harvest?

[PowerPoint slide 8]

Amongst all the funny lines and slapstick violence of Peter Rabbit, the film has quite a serious side as it explores that theme of winning and losing.

[PowerPoint slide 9]

In the battle to win control of the vegetable garden, old Mr McGregor loses his life.

[PowerPoint slide 10]

Then his nephew, young Mr McGregor, has to battle Peter and the other rabbits, not only to win control of the vegetable garden but also to win the love of his neighbour and Peter’s protector, Bea.

[PowerPoint slide 11]

And in our second clip from the film, we discover that Peter is so keen to be victorious over young Mr McGregor because he is suffering from a great loss.

If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say: ‘After saving Peter from old Mr McGregor, Bea and the rabbits run back to her cottage. She dries them with towels and gives them something to drink. The rabbits look at her paintings but cannot understand them. Peter then stares at a painting she had done of him. He remembers being younger and living happily with his parents. One day, his father goes to old Mr McGregor’s vegetable garden where he is caught and killed. He is served up in a pie by Mrs McGregor. These memories cause Peter to feel very sad. Bea reassures him that she will look after him forever.’ (Allow children time to respond to the film clip. What does it suggest to them about how we should celebrate Harvest?)

[PowerPoint slide 12]

Here’s another clue: in the Bible, God instructed His people that, at Harvest time, they were to remember those who were poor and from a different country. This is what he told them. (Read Leviticus 23: 22 (The International Children’s Bible)

[PowerPoint slide 13]

It is right to celebrate the fact that most of us have plenty of food to eat. But in our celebration we also ought to remember people in other countries who may have lost their harvest because of the weather or because it was eaten by animals. We also ought to remember people in this country who may have to rely on food banks because they have lost their jobs or have come here from another country because they have lost their homes through war or natural disasters. We might do this by sharing a meal with another family or by giving to a charity. (What other ideas do the children have?) This then is how we ought to celebrate Harvest.

At the end of the film, Bea tells Peter that love is infinite. What do you think she means by this?

The amount of food in the world is not infinite but there is enough to feed everyone. Why then do you think there are hungry people in the world?

What might you do as an individual / a class / a school to make sure that no one in the world is hungry?

How has Peter been affected by the loss of his parents?

It is estimated that across the world a third of all food is thrown away. What might you do to reduce food waste in your home/school?

In the film and in Beatrix Potter’s original books, the animals are like humans. In what ways are animals and humans similar/different? Why do you think this is?

Prayer

Dear God, we thank you for everything we have – our homes, our families and enough food to eat. May we never take any of these things for granted. At Harvest, please help us to remember people who don’t have the things that we do. Inspire us to help make the world a fairer place in which everyone has somewhere to live and enough to eat. Amen.